[3.0] "There were some solid moments but overall it was way too chaotic and angle of the camera couldnt made it worse. It was hard to follow the action, they didnt showed some of the spots because there were too much action at the same time. Final minutes saved some points for this match but its too little. ZS Jr did great finish but it felt so random after all."
[3.0] "The "get these guys on the card" match, which is crazy to say when you have people like Shota Umino, Yuya Uemura, Zack Saber Jr, Hirooki Goto, Tomohiro Ishii, Oleg Boltin, Knockout Brothers in here and have their star power wasted. Just a clear sign of Gedo not being able to book long-term when someone like ZSJ, main evented both Tokyo Dome shows last year just to be put here. I know we needed as much time as possible for Tanahashi's flowers at the end of the show, but damn. I hope some of these names get some real card action next year. The match itself is a match I probably will never watch again, a shame to start Wrestle Kingdom with this."
[4.0] "Probably the weakest match on the show, unfortunately. As usual with the Wrestle Kingdom Rambo, this was mainly a way to get more people on the card who weren't anywhere else. Crazy that Umino and Sabre went from being in the main event of last year's show to being in the Rambo opening up the main show this year."
[4.0] "Embarrassing to put on the main card and wouldve functioned much better as a Gauntlet. Some fun spots in here though. ZSJ main evented both Tokyo Dome nights last year btw. **"
[7.0] "I just don't get why this match has a low rating like that. It was not the best match on the card ofc, but it was really fun. Some nice exchanges, storyline building and a surprise for the winners. Might be the best rambo we've had in years."
[3.0] "I honestly didn't understand anything about this match. Several names that could have been in much better matches on this card were thrown into this awful and boring stipulation. Nothing in this match got me excited at all. At least I liked that TMDK won. Even though I didn't really care much about it, the result was unexpected, which is something."
[4.0] "From what I could see, the work itself was solid enough. Given the names here (Taichii my beloved) that shouldn't come as a surprise. But there's wayyy too many bodies here for this to be coherent in the slighest, both from a match perspective and just in terms of production. The actual presentation of the match, epsecially the editing here, was kinda embarrasing."
[2.0] "This was simply not a good match. This has nothing to do with any of the participants - they all tried their best given what they had to work with - but the entire structure and concept behind this match was bad. I understand they wanted to show off as much of their roster as possible but the production kept tripping over its own feet to do so, frequently cutting away from the action during crucial moments to show a new entrance, actively sabotaging the goal of highlighting these guys in the process. I do not watch pro-wrestling purely for costumes and entrances. If I wanted that, I'd watch a fashion show."
[0.0] "An absolute clusterfuck that had no business being on the Wrestle Kingdom main card, let alone as the opener. Just imagine wanting to watch New Japan for the first time and this being the very first match you see. You don't understand the rules, you don't understand the teams, the in-ring action is constantly interrupted by entrances and whatever does happen in the ring feels like a horde of NPCs running around. There's nothing positive to take away from this match."
[6.0] "Just fun fucking bullshit honestly, it's great stuff. Liked the rambo last year way more, obviously, and I do think one dude being eliminated shouldn't disqualify the entire team, but beyond that it's just a good bit of fun. Nothing huge."
[1.0] "VERY messy. Don't wanna give it any more than 1 point, cus I really didn't know what was going on. Stipulation sucked ass. Takechi's entrance was cool though. +1."
"[3.0] Weakest match on this show. It felt clunky, was poorly shot, and the characters moments were flooded out from where they should've been. A couple unfortunate botches bring this match down for me."
[4.0] "The amount of star power in this match was astonishing, especially for an opener, including (but not limited to) two wrestlers who have held world championships within the past twelve months. However, I believe that this star power was largely wasted. The match felt disjointed, mainly because of the excessive number of participants and, more importantly, the camera work, which was focused far too much on the entrances instead of the in-ring action. As a result, it was extremely difficult to follow what was actually happening in the ring. The overall score is partially salvaged by the closing sequences between TMDK and Bishamon, which were solid."
[6.0] "Fun opener even if it tripped over itself a bit. It was scattered, camera missed stuff and seeing Sabre here after his 2025 run feels like watching your buddy go from CEO to hosting trivia night. Still, it was fun in a mess. Narita and Boltin looked good."
[2.0] "[1.0*] The fact that this match existed with these wrestlers involved is just baffling. ZSJr and Umino main evented last year's show, Goto was a World Champ in 2025, Yuya is a God, Oiwa is amazing and Yuto/OSKAR are the Tag Champs. There's absolutely no way they couldn't have put these dudes in interesting singles/tag matches. A waste of everyone's time and a waste of their talent."
[3.0] "Traditionally, Wrestle Kingdom hosts a Rambo match at the beginning of the show, which, as usual, is a small fan service involving a large number of wrestlers who have not received solo matches in the card. And traditionally, it's just a very chaotic, not particularly outstanding action. 3 points."
[4.0] "I honestly think this fight wasn't that bad. It was supposed to be an entertaining and not the longest match at the beginning, which would start or develop some storylines. And yet, sometimes there are things that make the match worse and the wrestlers can't do anything about it, I'm talking about camera work here. Yes, this is an extremely chaotic and inconsistent match, but to miss such a huge number of key points is to try, and it severely affects the perception of the match, more than any flaws in the structure or work in the ring."
[3.0] "This was just dumb. Too many people in this match, not a lot of things that they can really do and overall stupid. This honestly should've been a 6 team gauntlet match (although I don't know who would win that) and have TMDK vs Knockout Brothers here at Wrestle Kingdom instead of at New Years Dash. It's good to see Jackson and Oiwa win their first titles, but yeah this sucked."
[4.0] "The New Japan Ranbo was a straight up clusterfuck, but it did have a few bright spots, especially the exchanges between Yuya/Shooter & Taichi/Ishii. TMDK was a brilliant choice to win and giving Oiwa/Hartley their first titles (**)."
[4.0] "It was a massive random match and full of mistakes not only by some wrestlers but also from the directors team who didn't take the right time for many scenes. The only good thing is TMDK winning it & ZSJ capture new gold in New Japan"
[4.0] "Just a match to put a maximum of wrestlers on the card, it wasn't very exciting, i'm happy for Oiwa ZSJ and Jackson, who deserves it a lot, but that's it."
[2.0] "I, of course, expected this to be chaotic. However, I didn't find this to be so in a positive way. The majority of this math ran with a big proportion of the active competitors on the outside of the ring, despite it being partially over-the-top-rope elimination, which felt totally besides the point. The single eliminations ruling-out an entire team meant that there was a lot of unsatisfying conclusions to entries and allowed predictable scapegoats to take the brunt of the eliminations. It wasn't easy to follow by any means - even commentary was confused - and I'd really have preferred to just exclude this from the card entirely."
[6.0] "Fine Ranbo with a bunch of good wrestlers and all the names you want. Lukewarm action, some cheap heat eliminations, not too many stakes, and a decent sweet moment for the big man Hartley Jackson. Also, built for the upcoming KO Brothers vs. TMDK tag title match next day. Takechi didn't do enough, but brought some attention with his entrance. Toru YOHno was cute too! Also, thank you Tiger Mask!"
[6.0] "I quite liked the match. It brought the 6-man titles on the card, a lot of the roster got moments that wouldve went to max 6 people elseway. Also the feelgood moment Jackson deserved. It was a fun start to the show"
[4.0] "A mediocre match with very little to remember, most of the time spent on entrances. Hartley Jackson stood out somewhat, but it was still a low point of the show. In-ring quality: 0.25/4. Stakes: 1.25/2. Justification: 0.75/1. Card placement: 0.75/1. Suspense: 1/1. Bonus/penalty: unworthy of a Wrestle Kingdom -0.75. Total: 4.25/10. Match seen on NJPW World."
[6.0] "It was a match? I dont know nothing fucking really happened in the grand scheme, Im happy for hartley jackson i love him but other than that this match is totally forgettable even by now less than a day later. Nothing of note happens, its the same case for every ranbo every year."
[6.0] "wasn't great, but I thought this one was pretty fun. Some cool spots with a lot of the guys I like, and a nice win for the TMDK boys. Could've done more with a lot of the talent involved but I think this served its purpose well"
[3.0] "This was basically one team sends another to the floor, another one comes in and sends them to the floor, and so on for the first ten minutes of this. The WWE type focus on entrances made the first 15 minutes impossible to actually follow, even more so than usual rambos. That said, it was about 10 minutes shorter than the Rambo usually is, so thank Gedo for small mercies. Would have liked more focus on Yuto."
[4.0] "It's...whatever. My only real gripe is that the eliminations were sooo fast. Like, Knock Out Brothers didn't even get to do anything. And they're the tag team champions! And not to mention Clark Connors, who I don't even think actually entered the ring. At least TMDK won the match and Oiwa got to hold his first title. Very proud of how far he's come."
[3.0] "**1/2 match meh, honestly, nothing was to be expected despite some of the big names. This match was a pretty basic exhibition; it wasn't terrible or anything awful, but it was very basic and practically irrelevant. Before the final sequences, the only relevant thing was seeing a few entrances and Thekla appearing with the War Dogs, who I didn't like being the first eliminated"
[4.0] "Kind of an odd match. Was there really no way we could've gotten a singles match for some of the absolute legends still in their primes in this match? ZSJ, Ishii, Goto? Including those guys in this match did prevent it from being true filler, as odds are there was *somebody* you're a fan of in this match. It was hard to keep track of who was still in and who wasn't. I really liked the finish."
[4.0] "This was fine I suppose. Very hard to get invested with whats going on as more people flood the ring and it becomes more of a mess. But they did good in the final two teams. One of them being the superteam of Bolton and Bishimon was a must and Zack getting the flash pin in the end will make for a good follow up potentially."
[4.0] "This wasn't so much a wrestling match as it was a parade of entrances. I've never seen a RAMBO match before, but if it's always 1-minute intervals for the next entrants, I can't see how any of them are good. As soon as we focus on the ring action for a little bit, there's a new entrant that takes focus away from the match. Did I see much great wrestling? No. Did I potentially miss some when the camera cuts to a new entrant? Possibly. 8 teams of 3 is too many with that interval window. And as is usual with multi-man matches, we get a fair amount of "laying out" on the outside once all the entrants have come down. So, despite there being a bunch of teams left, it's a lot of 2 or 3 guys in the ring at once while everyone rests on the floor. While I'm only very familiar with a few guys (ZSJ, Ishii, Sanada, Connors), I have seen probably half of the rest wrestle at least once. Did I get to see any of them really put on a show or see something out of someone new to me that made me want to check out more? No. Kind of a waste. If they're going to put a 6-man belt on a new team I don't think this is the best format. Seems like they were using this as an excuse to get as many guys as possible onto the card for Tana's retirement, which is understandable. At least ZSJ got a very cool pin on Boltin."
[4.0] "NO REASON that this match should have been anywhere near 20 minutes. At times I have enjoyed the Rambo match but this year not at all. Not a reason to why we should have had it be this big trios match this year because it just made it over cluttered and confusing as hell. Also disappointed that this is what Sabre was put into after carrying the world title for a big part of this year in two seperate reigns. Didn't expect them to win this match at all rather I expected oiwa and Sabre to win the tag belts over the knockout bros. (**1/4)"
[4.0] "Yeah this was pretty fucking pointless this it the third year i have watched WK and i am once again left wondering what is the fucking point of a Rambo they are so dross like every battle royal to be fair to them though. It was just such a cluster fuck the whole time i was thinking what is the point we missed lots of it as the camera kept cutting to people making entrances which was not great. The whole 20 minutes i was just thinking good god how many talents were fucking wasted in this stupid fucking match surely we could of has TMDK vs the Knockout Bros open the card instead. I guess it was cool to see Thekla come out with the wardogs, Oiwa eliminate Oskar ahead of New years dash and some of the action in the ring that we actually got to see was passable and in the ended a really cool counter pin from ZSJ to win TMDK the belts and a feel good moment for Hartley. But god this match was a big waste of time for the most part. (**1/4)"
[3.0] "A pretty boring, convoluted and WAY overlong anti-spectacle. A traditional battle royale would've been much more enjoyable, but hey, I guess you have to find a place for guys like Tomohiro Ishii and ZSJ (who was HEADLINING WK just a year earlier) *somewhere* on the show. A very, VERY easy skip right here."
[6.0] "3.25 stars - while yes disappointing to see some huge names like Zack Sabre Jr wasted away in a 24 man match like this, it was still fun. In a chaotic fun kind of way. I maybe expedted it to be better yet but it was still good"
[7.0] "Understandably for the most part this was a cluster, but it was a reasonably fun one. I've moved it into 7 territory for the closing stretch between TMDK and Boltin/Bishamon. I had the latter down to win this so was surprised with the result, but they had a fun mini-match for the closing stretch and I didn't see anything offensive in this match."
[6.0] "Three stars, a clusterfuck in NJPW managed to not be a major disaster despite the review bombing it is getting. Some nice exchanges that played into current storylines. I think the intervals needed to be spaced better but the bar is in hell for NJPW gimmick multimen matches."
[4.0] "A very short match for such a packed Rambo, which led everything to feeling very rushed, I do wonder what the point of this match was aside from getting as many faces in as possible. I did not think the action was bad, I quite enjoyed watching it overall, but it definitely felt abrupt and bizarrely paced. TMDK got the win in a nice moment for Hartley Jackson, not exactly worth a watch."
[7.0] "While I'm not a fan of the booking toward this match (So many people that could/should have been featured in bigger positions like ZSJ, Goto, Umino, Uemura, KOB, and others), the match itself was pretty fun to watch. KOB's elimination to TMDK is a fun teaser for tomorrow, and Yano and "YOHno" (as english commentary put it) was a funny bit even if they didn't end up winning."
[6.0] "A perfectly fine and fun way to open Wrestle Kingdom proper. A lot of the major stories were furthered (TMDK vs. War Dogs, everyone vs. House of Torture, and most wrestlers got at least some moments in the match to showcase themselves. Standouts were Takechi and Toru YOH-no i.e YOH. If I was to levy a criticism of the match, it's that some wrestlers were eliminated during the entrances of others, and that the entrances took a little too long. Otherwise, as stated before, perfectly fine and fun opener."
[2.0] "What a shit useless Match..why this crap is on the main show? Why Zack sabre jr and Goto despites had a fantastic 2025 are in this shit match? Do goto vs sabre not this shit"
[7.0] "This seems as though I was the only person who enjoyed this match. Was it a classic ? No . But what this match is , is a fun , chaotic, simple match on wrestle kingdom to get the show started , I enjoyed large amounts of the offence and found it to be a unpredictable match"
[5.0] "NEVER RAMBO = [3 Stars] - It was surprisingly enjoyable to watch. I'm very happy with Hartley Jackson's performance in the match. It's wonderful to see moments like this at the Tokyo Dome."
[3.0] "The Ranbo was a terrible match, way too chaotic, and just emblematic of Gedo's shit booking this year. Uemura losing the sumo battle to Taichi(! ) and then eliminating himself and his team was dumb as hell. This is a guy who should be a major player. You build the match around getting over your next group of main eventers (Uemura's team, despite how little I care about Shota). Instead, it was just a mess that I don't think helped anyone get more over. I'm happy for Hartley that he won a belt, but TMDK didn't need this."
[5.0] "This was a fun match, nothing amazing but it was entertaining and gave everyone an opportunity to get on the card. Nice to see TMDK win here and be the new NEVER 6 Man champs"
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